Josh Trevino posted this on January 24, 2004, at his blog Tacitus. Seven months later RedState.com came online.We’ve come along way since 2004.In our fifth year, we started the RedState Gathering. I put up a post without even telling my bosses at Eagle Publishing what I was up to. I just knew some of us wanted to get together in person after five years of knowing each other online. I asked who might be interested thinking 50 or so people would like to meet in Atlanta. Over 200 showed up. We’ve been doing the RedState Gathering ever since.This year, the RedState Gathering will take place in Jacksonville, FL. Continuing a tradition Governor Rick Perry started in Austin, TX the second year of the Gathering, Governor Rick Scott will have a kick off party and welcome the attendees to his state.Governor Rick Scott has been at the forefront of fighting socialized healthcare going all the way back to Hillarycare. In Florida, he has been a real leader on privatization, efficiency of government, and conservative transformation. RedState was one of the few sites that was willing to speak up on his behalf when he ran for Governor in 2010 and I am personally delighted he’ll be joining us. He’s a great, great guy.So please join Governor Rick Scott, me, and the RedState contributors in Jacksonville, FL August 2nd to the 5th. Go to www.redstategathering.com to register. Time is running out.Please click here for the rest of the post.

It is a lie premised on Marxism. It really is. It is not hyperbole to say it. Prior to Marx, people did not clearly think of economics as class divided and did not think of the collective overriding the individual. Certainly the thinking was there sociologically, but not crystalized in economics.As Daniel Henninger noted in the Wall Street Journal recently, “There is no theory anywhere in non-Marxist economics that says growth’s primary engine is a social class. A middle class is the result of growth, not its cause. Barack Obama not only believes in class-based growth but has built his whole growth strategy around it.”Thus we arrive at President Obama’s very troubling statement in Roanoke on Friday. He told the crowd

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Basic background: some scientists in the FDA have gotten concerned over whether certain approved devices for medical procedures (mammograms, colonoscopies) are actually dangerously radioactive. Said scientists have been making their concerns known; and apparently the FDA decided to monitor the scientists’ communications for confidential or proprietary business information (this will be important later). So far, OK: but then the FDA decided that it was an absolutely brilliant idea to track and keep copies of said communication, including private emails. Note, by the way, that there is currently no indication that the scientists in question themselves revealed confidential or propriety business information.Please click here for the rest of the post.

Don’t be silly. Mitt Romney’s not a superhero (not mine, anyway).But when it comes to the economy, the presumptive Republican nominee is the Man of Steel compared to the Democratic incumbent. So far, the Obama Administration has been a 3-1/2 year experiment to reconfirm that Keynesian Economics is deserving of history’s dustbin.Please click here for the rest of the post.

People may recall that Politico published a story several days ago cataloging what appears to be a somewhat alarming trend: to wit, videos showing ostensible ‘tracking’ of Republican candidates by individuals. I say ostensible because the way that the videos come across are as rather obsessive stalking of said candidates. For example: while it is understood that a candidate will be followed around, casing a candidates’s house from several different angles (account name: WI08RawFootage) or deliberately putting another candidate’s address (account name: AR01RawFootage) online, is generally considered to be, well, creepy. And that’s what is happening.Please click here for the rest of the post.